WE to use alternate roster for Katowice

Chinese representatives Team WE will be using an alternate roster for the IEM World Championships in Katowice, ESL confirmed to theScore today.

The alternate roster, as featured on the Intel Extreme Masters website, will replace their current LPL mid laner Noh "Ninja" Geon-woo for current substitute player Su "Xiye" Han-Wei. Former Jin Air Green Wings AD carry Jin "Mystic" Seong-jun will replace current LPL AD carry Qu "Styz" Zi-Liang.

The move has been speculated inside Chinese circles for a while, with many stating that Seong-jin's high ranking on the Chinese Ionian server as one of the reasons for this change.

Seong-jun was previously the AD Carry for the Jin Air Green Wings Falcons and additionally played for Team WE's sister team, WE Academy, as a jungler in the 2015 LPL expansion tournament.

Han-Wei previously played for WE Academy as their mid laner prior to their LPL qualification in Summer of 2014. He only played six Best of 2s for WE Academy before being replaced by high ranking Korean solo queue player, Son "Mickey" Yong-min. Xiye returned to the roster after the LPL season to play the 2015 Expansion Tournament, but was replaced again by Bae "dade" Eo-jin when the team was sold off and renamed to Master3.

WE currently sit at the bottom of the table in the Tencent LoL Pro League with a overall Win-Draw-Loss record of 1-6-8 and many Chinese fans have lamented the fact that WE will be the only team to represent the LPL.

ESL has confirmed with theScore that this will be the roster that WE will be using at Katowice. It remains to be seen if this will be the roster WE opts to run in the LPL afterwards.

WE's IEM Katowice roster will be:

Zhenming “Aluka” Peng (Top)

Dayun “Spirit” Lee (Jungle)

Su “Xiye” Han-Wei (Mid)

Jin “Mystic” Seong-jun (ADC)

Zhe “YuZhe” Zhang (Support)

Patch 6.24 released; Ranked Reset accompanies it

Gabriel Zoltan-Johan
2d ago
Thumbnail image courtesy of Riot Games

Riot has released their latest patch, 6.24, which harbors a whole host of changes as League carries over to the new season. The last patch of Season 6, 6.24 has fairly substantial changes to items, champions, and the map that shift the meta away from what was predominantly picked across 2016.

On champions, over 10 have been altered in some way, including notable buffs onto the following champions:

Akali (Passive works on towers)

Azir (Soldiers come up more often; enemies get less gold from your passive, and the tower does more damage)

Fiddlesticks (W damage increased, E cooldown reduced)

Garen (You shred armor as you spin to win with E)

Varus (Passive now gives you bonus attack speed on unit kill)

Katarina (Dagger passive damage slightly increased)

The notable nerf bat recipients this time around were:

Twitch (Venom Cask mana increased, passive now does less true damage per stack)

Vayne (Tumble AD Ratio reduced)

Ivern (Triggerseed costs more mana, and slows way less at early levels)

Rengar (Bonetooth Necklace bonus damage reduced, and a bugfix to change it from total AD to bonus AD)

LeBlanc (Waveclear and health regeneration reduced substantially, but given a small q buff to compensate)

Kog'Maw (AP ratio and damage on E reduced by a large amount, however a small W damage buff to compensate and shift Kog'Maw towards AD)

Outside of champions, Rylai's has been changed to be less likely to be taken by bursty mages and more likely to be taken by true control mages, with its ability power and health reduced to make it less appealing as a damage and survivability option.

Jungle camps have changed substantially as well. Red and Blue buffs don't provide their on-hit burn/slow and percentage AP respectively, but have slightly increased duration to compensate. Krugs has also lost a major amount of experience on the first clear, making the Red-Krugs-Early gank route much less appealing because junglers are unable to hit level three before three minutes when doing that now. Whereas 6.23 shifted experience from Raptors to Krugs, now the experience lost on Krugs is not moved anywhere, making the jungle have less experience on first clear overall.

As well as all this, Riot has made a fair few changes outside of the game, adding functionality to their client through a better spectator mode, a low-spec mode for struggling computers, and in-client keybinding changes. Finally, as with every season, Riot is doing a soft ranked reset so that we can all climb to Challenger, where we deserve to be.

The Precision Protocol: A Camille guide

Riot's latest champion, Camille, is set to be released along with patch 6.24. As she stylishly struts onto Summoner's Rift, allies and enemies alike won't just be asking what she does, but what she's actually good at. By now, maybe you've seen a few popular YouTube VODs of this champion on the Public Beta Environment. You've also seen 90 percent of them have no actual clue what is optimal with her in many aspects, including runes, masteries, itemization and most egregiously, her skill order.

Playstyle

Camille was designed as a top lane champion first and foremost. Her role there is as a scaling splitpusher, able to put a lot of pressure on the side lanes of the map, and then either roam to other parts of Summoner’s Rift and carve out advantages with her team or in open spaces. In teamfights, she thrives in being able to enter the fray after big game-changing abilities have already been used, allowing her to be uninhibited in cleaning up and chasing down targets with deadly accuracy.

Runes Explanation

Attack Damage Reds

Armor Yellows

Magic Resistance Blues

Attack Speed Quintessences

Your fairly standard fighter/splitpusher page should suffice for Camille. The armor and magic resistance runes are even more necessary given the shield at your disposal are further amplified by more defensive stats.

Masteries Explanation

The newly buffed Fervor allows Camille to build up stacks extremely quickly. Her great bonus AD scalings are impacted by the addition of bonus AD from Fervor of Battle, and her high attack speed through her E, items, runes and masteries allows her to constantly be keeping stacks up as she stays in a fight or wades in and out of a fight. This keystone is of the highest priority after the 6.24 buffs. An argument can be made for Grasp of the Undying for tougher lane matchups or even Courage of the Colossus, which works on the knockback of your ultimate as well as your E. The issue is that you lose out on the percentage armor penetration from the ferocity tree with which Camille thrives.

The resolve tree gives Camille the most added benefit to her early phases of the game, and helps her survive and be able to stay healthy enough to threaten support during a gank. The health regeneration helps her against poke and harass, Siegemaster helps her while she is pushed in (a likely scenario because of her lack of waveclear and focus on true damage Qs on opponents) and is the most gold efficient mastery with that in mind. Runic armor affects her passive shield, giving her a shield worth 1.6 percent more of her maximum health versus the 10 extra value on her shield that Veteran Scars would give and Runic armor’s contribution to the shield outscales Veteran Scars after Level 6. As well, Runic armor gives extra regeneration from the healing portion of W, and helps with the shield from Sterak’s Gage (more on that in the itemization section).

Fearless/Insight and Bounty Hunter/Double-Edged Sword are interchangeable masteries based on your playstyle. If you’re willing to sacrifice your summoner spell cooldowns a small amount, the stats that Fearless gives you are absolutely crucial on initial engages and fights that you participate in, because the additional resistances apply onto your shields, making you a sturdier threat in the first parts of a fight and giving you the upper hand as you continue to press for individual advantages. The downside is the potential small window of opportunity to exploit a lack of flash or teleport compared to the opponent, which could have deeper macro effects. Both Bounty Hunter and Double Edged Sword affect your damage to all targets, not just champions, and so are worth taking accordingly; if you feel the need to snowball your lane moreso, Double-Edged Sword is more worth it.

Skill Order Explanation

First 6 levels: QEWEER.

Gabriel, E max? Are you insane? That’s not the Q at all! I know, but hear me out. Think about what you actually get with the level up of Q. You increase your movement speed from it nominally, there is no base damage increase (only a percentage of total AD), and the cooldown is already naturally very low because of the wait time between the first and second Q. It’s also single target, making your ability to deal with large waves very difficult. But here’s the kicker (pun very intended): The true damage conversion on Q isn’t based on the level of Camille’s Q at all, but rather the level that Camille is! In that sense, there’s almost no point to leveling it up first.

Instead, maxing your E provides Camille with everything she needs immediately. It’s a fairly reliable way to immediately trigger your shield passive, gives you insane attack speed when hitting a champion, and gives you an AoE wave clear option if used on minions. The high reduced cooldown also allows her to zip around like the map is your oyster, making her roams more potent in the early stages as well.

Afterwards, you should put points into W when you can, because of the additional waveclear option, the increasing percent health damage, and the reduced cooldown also being incredibly good for early skirmishes and the ability to chase or escape. Her ultimate should be leveled at 6, 11 and 16 and should be used early and often as a way to influence other lanes or create a perfect gank either on your lane or on a lane you roam or teleport into.

Itemization Explanation

Triforce is absolutely core on Camille, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the spellblade passive applies to both parts of her Q, and the cooldown before the second Q is able to do true damage at the exact same time as the cooldown for the spellblade passive on Trinity Force. It’s literally... tons of (true) damage.

In addition to Trinity Force, Sterak’s Gage is another necessary item for Camille, as it gives her everything she needs in order to threaten enemy champions in a 1v1. Not only does the shield help her survive bursty all-ins (In the late game, Camille will get a 1000 health shield at least), the base damage increase from both the item and the additional increase from its passive allows for even more powerful Qs and true damage Qs through the base damage increase affecting the spellblade passive’s damage (which only applies based on the base damage of a champion).

Items like an early Tiamat may seem a useful investment for waveclear, but are just as easily a trap item that delays your Trinity Force. Recall that your E and W are potent AoE tools that can clear caster minions in the early stages, and her attack speed should help her do the same in later stages. Her second Q does not add the on-hit effect as true damage (aside from spellblade), so be aware of that when purchasing an item like Titanic or Ravenous Hydra.

Guardian Angel is a bundle of resists with an incredibly useful revive passive that helps when split pushing and jumping into small skirmishes. Further, It’s a set of resistances that gives you greater effective health on your shields (Camille passive and Sterak’s passive) and health gained from your core items of Trinity Force and Sterak’s Gage.

Laning

A good rule of thumb when laning with Camille is to use your first Q on minions, and your true damage Q on your lane opponent if they go in for harass or their own CS. Just sustain versus ranged matchups, trying to cull down the wave with your AoE spells and use the added resistances from Fearless and Siegemaster to come out on top when your minions harass them in response. Consider Corrupting Potion for those matchups, though a Long Sword with three health potions is pretty reasonable as well if you feel you won’t be spending too much mana. Going for Doran’s Blade in a ranged matchup is not ideal because you’re unlikely to get auto attacks off to lifesteal back the harass.

Camille... in the jungle?

It’s not out of the question by any means: Camille can jungle, and she definitely has the mobility and ultimate to be a deadly gank threat to all lanes. The same runes and masteries are worth taking in the jungle, with Siegemaster replaced by Explorer.

With the removal of the ability to get Level 3 after Red and Krugs, it’s worth starting on the blue side of the map as Camille in almost all instances now because of her high single-target damage being more appropriate for the Blue buff side. My previous article on jungle routes can get you started on the best paths given the inability to cheese your opponents with the aforementioned Red-Krugs-early gank path.

On ganks, you operate similarly to Vi: get to your target to lock them down with your ultimate. Landing the Hookshot (E) helps, but if it’s even just used to close the gap for your ultimate, it’s still worth it if your teammates can follow up. It will almost always guarantee a kill on enemies just due to the ability to keep them within a zone and away from safety, generally.

Her item build remains fairly similar to her top lane build, with only the addition of a Skirmisher's Sabre with the Warrior Enchantment, which is worth picking up before your Trinity Force. The smite active on champions is incredibly powerful in tandem with your dueling potential, the damage reduction working on your shield, and the damage over time synergizing with your ultimate damage and providing extra true damage along with your second Q.

Gabriel Zoltan-Johan is a News Editor at theScore esports and the head analyst for the University of Toronto League of Legends team. His (public) musings can be found on his Twitter.

Viewership for the League of Legends World Championship has gone up once again, with 43 million unique viewers for the Grand Finals series between SK Telecom T1 and Samsung Galaxy.

In an infographic published by Riot on Tuesday, Riot claimed that this year's event say fans watch 370 million hours of the tournament, up from 360 last year, and hit 43 million unique viewers during the Grand Finals, up from 36 million in 2015. Additionally, peak concurrent viewership for the tournament was 14.7 million, up from 14 million last year.

However, this jump is not nearly as large as the gap between 2014 and 2015's numbers. In 2014, the grand finals reached 27 million unique viewers, with 194 million total hours watched.

Another interesting stat from Riot's infographic is that the final prize pool reached 6.7 million dollars, up from 2.1 million thanks to fan contribution and team icon purchases.

Also, don't feel bad if you got your pick'em wrong. Literally only one person had a perfect pick'em. One out of 1,969,087. Hope he enjoys his skins.

NA LCS sister teams cannot play in promotion tournaments

NA LCS sister teams competing in the Challenger Series will not be allowed to compete in promotion tournaments to secure a spot in the LCS, Riot Games senior esports coordinator J.T. Vandenbree announced on Twitter Thursday. Vandenbree also added that, at the moment, he could only confirm that the policy will be in place for the NA LCS as "EU makes their own choice on this."

Also worth noting- as of this year, LCS sister teams are not allowed to participate in Promotion. The incentive to "farm" a CS spot is gone.

In the past, sister teams such as Cloud9 Challenger and Dignitas EU won LCS slots through promotion tournaments, but because LCS rules restrict organizations from running more than one team in a league, the orgs had to sell the LCS seeds for hefty profits.

Vandenbree specifically says the policy change is to prevent orgs from intentionally "farming" LCS slots for the express intention of selling them. He also says that if a sister team qualifies for a promotion tournament, they will be passed over in favor of the next placed Challenger Series team.

Since lots are asking - if a sister team takes top 2, we will take the next highest-finishing CS team.

In November, Counter Logic Gaming acquired several members of Team Cloud to form a roster to compete in the NA Challenger Series Open Qualifier. According CLG's head coach, Tony "Zikz" Grey, the team knew about the policy change when they signed the players and they are "dedicated to helping players improve."

"We created our challenger team knowing that the team would not be able to qualify for the LCS promotion tournament even if they won the Challenger Series. Our players signed with us knowing the same thing," Counter Logic Gaming said in a statement on Reddit. "We picked up our players, and they joined us because there was a mutual understanding that the primary goal was player development. They are a part of the CLG organization as much as our LCS players are. We want them to become the best players they can be."

Sasha Erfanian is a news editor for theScore esports. Follow him on Twitter, it'll be great for his self-esteem.